The terms “modern art” and “contemporary art” are often used interchangeably. Is there a difference between the two and if so, what do the terms refer to respectively? The first question is simple to answer: Yes, there is a difference, both regarding content and time of the two notions. The movements of modern art took place before the contemporary art period.
The second question, in how far modern and contemporary art are different, is trickier and can be answered in many ways. Some answers are straightforward and easy to grasp, others are more philosophical, relying on abstract conceptions. Let’s start with the short answer, which can be presented in a simplified timeline:
- Modern art is the period that started with the Impressionism art movement in the middle of the 19th century and that ended with the onset of Post-Modernism after the Second World War.
- Contemporary art is all forms of art that began after the Second World War and especially in the 1960s until today.
For a bit more elaborate answer, let us look at what was happening at these times starting with one decisive artist, Courbet.
Big Bang: Gustave Courbet as trailblazer for modern art
Modern Art started with a big bang, which was a painting by Gustave Courbet called “Burial at Ornans”. What was different about this painting was that he portrayed the funeral of a common peasant man with unflattering realism in a giant scale, which was traditionally reserved for the religious or heroic scenes of the history painting genre. Courbet therefore established himself as an independent thinker, venturing beyond was constituted acceptable forms of traditional art by the state-run academies.
When Courbet exhibited his painting at the 1850 Paris Salon, it evoked an explosive reaction and brought Courbet instant fame. The Academy criticized the depiction of dirty farm workers around an open grave, lacking any sentimental rhetoric that had been expected in genre work up to that time. Critics accused Courbet of the deliberate pursuit of unattractiveness. Yet the public grew more interested in the artist’s realist approach and the decadent, lavish fantasy of Romanticism lost popularity.
Releasing the shackles of traditional conventions in art: The onset of modern art
Many people find it hard to make sense of modern and contemporary pieces of art. Before Courbet’s big ‘coming out’, art had been not perplexing at all since it was obvious to the viewer what art exemplified. The purpose of art had been clearly defined to be in service of history, religion, and politics. Art was mostly used to spread the ideology, the message, or tenets that they officially stood for. This becomes most obvious considering the fact that the large majority of ancient and classic art works in Europe show a prominent Christian influence, no matter if in paintings, sculptures, or in architecture.
Before the onset of modernism in the 19th century, art was still seen to serve political and religious causes. Beginning with Courbet, artists consecutively released themselves from the shackles of what had been considered legitimate art. Courbet’s motto, to only paint what he can see, became an important notion of what would be the movement of impressionism. The call for “art for art’s sake“, which is true from that time till today, marks the onset of the period of modern art. The main aim of modern art became setting aside the customary traditions of the past and focusing on a new approach in assessing the current issues of the world.
Manet as the starting point of modern art
While Courbet is considered a trailblazer of modern art, art critics such as Clement Greenberg consider Édouard Manet to have been the pioneer as the first modern artist, especially with his painting from 1863 “Luncheon on the Grass”. Not only did he depict scenes of modern life, but also did he break with tradition, discarding to mimic the real world using the means of perspective. The figures presented in the picture are not arranged according to the regular perspective but seem to be sitting on top of each other. Instead, Manet drew attention to the fact that he was painting on a flat canvas using a paintbrush – He deliberately left marks on the surface of his composition which shocked the critics at that time but inspired many artist generations to come to draw more attention to the medium used in painting.
The -isms of Modernism
The modernist art period began parallel to the dawn of the industrial revolution in Western Europe. The pace of life changed considerably with the invention of technologies such as machine-powered factories, electrical power generation, and the internal combustion engine in urban areas.
The advent of photography posed a serious threat to the classical modes of representing objects, since with painting artists impossibly could capture the same degree of detail. Painters tried to find new modes of expression, representing their experiences in the modern world in innovative ways. Their works became more personal and experimental.
Although modern art refers to a large number of artistic genres, including various terms ending with “ism”, spanning more than one century, the common denominator is the rejection of traditional styles and the artists striving to portray their subjects as they exist in the world aesthetically. The time gave rise to movements such as Impressionism, Fauvism, Post-Impressionism, Dadaism, Cubism, Surrealism, Expressionism, Pop Art, and many further art movements. Influential and famous modern artists were Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Georges Seurat, Andre Derain, Henri Matisse, Henri de Toulouse, Piet Mondrian, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Wassily Kandinsky.
The transition to contemporary
How did we get from modern art to contemporary art? Many art critics consider the movement of Abstract Expressionism as a turning point: Artists of this style focused less on the content of the picture and focused more on the process of making the artwork itself. Well-known examples are Jackson Pollock with his drip painting technique and Willem de Kooning, who also worked in a spontaneous improvisatory manner.
What does contemporary art mean?
Contemporary art literally means art of the moment, yet defining it in terms of a date range is challenging. What does ‘present day’ or art by ‘living artist’ really mean – terms that are often used in the context of contemporary art? Does it mean that a piece of art engages with the culture of the present day? These questions are negotiable and there is not definite answer to them.
Some art critics set the starting point of contemporary art to the end of the Second World War; others have the period starting in the 1970s. A central distinction between modern and contemporary art was the shift away from the aesthetic beauty of an art piece and towards the underlying concept of the work. The best examples for this new notion of art are performance art and conceptual art, in which the result is less important than the process of implementing art. Instead of beauty and form, contemporary artists of movements such as Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art were often more interested in the concept behind the artwork and took on lots of different representational forms including video, installation, and performance.
For most contemporary artists, the actual piece of art or performance is not as important as the viewer’s impression of and experience through the artwork. Therefore, contemporary art often pushes the boundaries asking the question of what art can be.
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